Graffiti representing barrios of Caracas. ( Photo: Seb ) is the kind of column that you would never have to write. Last year I published an article about insecurity in Caracas titled "The delinquency has Does the skin of the 'Bolivarian Revolution'? . The story began with the testimony of a taxi driver, Pastor. Last Saturday he was killed, a victim, too, crime.
Pastor is a taxi driver in Caracas. He works at night to avoid traffic congestion at the entrance and exit of capital. "As I live a bit outside, I should get up every day at 4 am in order to arrive at a decent hour in the center," said he. But night work is more risky, so he works almost exclusively with known clients: "They pass me a call and I'll get them where they are. It's safer for me and for them, we never know who you can fall. "
Despite his caution, Pastor was the victim of a robbery ago months, while driving a customer in a barrio (neighborhood disadvantage). "Two motorcyclists have pointed their weapons. I could not resist, I preferred they go with the car and get out of there alive." The incident will remain there and Pastor even find his car a few days later. But stories of armed robbery does not always end as well. Between 1999 and 2008, nearly 22,000 people have fallen under the bullets of the crime, merely Caracas (2 million). At the national level, a Corps document scientific investigations, criminal and criminal (CICPC), disclosed recently in the press, gives a figure of 101,141 homicides in ten years (28 million) ", explained the article published in May 2009 (1) .
Last weekend, Pastor luck has turned. While driving a client in the neighborhood of Las Mercedes (yet upscale neighborhood known as shelters among others the Embassy of France) he too eventually fell under the fire of urban violence.
During his years in Venezuela, he became my trusted taxi. I made myself some of these "known clients" with whom he worked. Last Saturday after a theatrical release, around 23:30, I decided to call to get home. But it is his colleague who answered the phone: "We killed Pastor," he said.
"We killed Pastor. Four words that seem, even now impossible to combine in my head, as if I had misheard, misunderstood. The tragedy had happened when I called. After stammering a few questions, some complaints, a long silence settled over the phone. The same silence, probably, than one who stays every weekend in Caracas, whenever a life skids under the bullets of hate.
Pastor was killed for something stupid. A collision with a passing animal. According to the newspaper on Monday (2) , the person who accompanied the passing drew his gun and shot ... in the back. Pastor was killed instantly. The height of cowardice. The height of stupidity. The height of ignorance. On the same page of the newspaper, like every day, violence and deaths make the headlines: "Six killed in a mutiny in the prison in Los Teques," "The crime actually see in all colors streets of Coche, "" Beware of paramilitaries ", etc..
Death prefers poor
The case of Pastor is tragically commonplace, tragically common. The Salvadoran civil war, which lasted 12 years (in a country of just under six million inhabitants) has 75 000 victims. The "Bolivarian Revolution", which claims to be on the path of socialism, left to die more than 100,000 people in ten years, in peacetime, unflinchingly . Violence is not the same, obviously. That El Salvador was political, that of Venezuela has no color, no name, anyone can qualify. Yet death is preferred the poor, workers as Pastor risk their lives every day to bring food for their families. "Young men, residents of socioeconomically depressed communities of large urban centers," as stated in Article 2009. The roots of violence are deep, obviously. But the answers are insufficient.
A 42-year Pastor leaves behind a wife and a baby as young as seven months. That will ensure a dignified life and a future now? The height of cowardice does not only apply to one who pulls the trigger, and this applies especially to a state unable to answer a crying need in the population. This also applies to a state unable to protect its citizens and, where appropriate, to find and punish the guilty. This also applies to a ruling class increasingly focused on partisan politics and less about the realities of the country.
The rich always like the new rich (this "bolibourgeoisie" bureaucratic caste, which is enriched through its power stations) have much less to worry about violence. As in most Latin American capitals, upscale neighborhood homes are surrounded by high walls and systems surveillance. The senior officials access to private clinics and their children studying in the best schools, private as well. In Venezuela, many of whom preach socialism on the day of oligarchs and live like the rest of the time. By chance, a few days ago during a conversation with an acquaintance, it commented to me that the children of senior officials "Bolivarian" studying at the French Lycée in Caracas. Like what these people do not believe for one second to contribute to policies to establish themselves.
Pastor I saw just three days before his death. He complained of seeing buses softball teams (3) escorted by National Guard, while the inhabitants of Caracas are subject to curfew delinquency and serious lack of police manpower on the streets. Ironically, it is itself the victim three days later.
"The crime she has the skin of the Bolivarian revolution?" Was the question posed by the article published in 2009 in the daily Le Courrier . Today to respond, as I had done so with Pastor, I'll just quote someone else encountered on the streets of Caracas. It is the seller's booth newspaper downstairs from me, which I do not know the names but that sums up the prevailing feeling in the neighborhoods, 'I am but Chavez there , really the Comandante and the government do nothing to improve the situation. "
Notes:
(1) "The crime will Does the skin of the 'Bolivarian Revolution'? " The Courier , May 26, 2009.
(2) "transeunte a taxista furioso mató of a tiro," Últimas Noticias , June 28, 2010.
(3) The e Venezuela is currently hosting the XII World Championship Women's Softball.
Pastor is a taxi driver in Caracas. He works at night to avoid traffic congestion at the entrance and exit of capital. "As I live a bit outside, I should get up every day at 4 am in order to arrive at a decent hour in the center," said he. But night work is more risky, so he works almost exclusively with known clients: "They pass me a call and I'll get them where they are. It's safer for me and for them, we never know who you can fall. "
Despite his caution, Pastor was the victim of a robbery ago months, while driving a customer in a barrio (neighborhood disadvantage). "Two motorcyclists have pointed their weapons. I could not resist, I preferred they go with the car and get out of there alive." The incident will remain there and Pastor even find his car a few days later. But stories of armed robbery does not always end as well. Between 1999 and 2008, nearly 22,000 people have fallen under the bullets of the crime, merely Caracas (2 million). At the national level, a Corps document scientific investigations, criminal and criminal (CICPC), disclosed recently in the press, gives a figure of 101,141 homicides in ten years (28 million) ", explained the article published in May 2009 (1) .
Last weekend, Pastor luck has turned. While driving a client in the neighborhood of Las Mercedes (yet upscale neighborhood known as shelters among others the Embassy of France) he too eventually fell under the fire of urban violence.
During his years in Venezuela, he became my trusted taxi. I made myself some of these "known clients" with whom he worked. Last Saturday after a theatrical release, around 23:30, I decided to call to get home. But it is his colleague who answered the phone: "We killed Pastor," he said.
"We killed Pastor. Four words that seem, even now impossible to combine in my head, as if I had misheard, misunderstood. The tragedy had happened when I called. After stammering a few questions, some complaints, a long silence settled over the phone. The same silence, probably, than one who stays every weekend in Caracas, whenever a life skids under the bullets of hate.
Pastor was killed for something stupid. A collision with a passing animal. According to the newspaper on Monday (2) , the person who accompanied the passing drew his gun and shot ... in the back. Pastor was killed instantly. The height of cowardice. The height of stupidity. The height of ignorance. On the same page of the newspaper, like every day, violence and deaths make the headlines: "Six killed in a mutiny in the prison in Los Teques," "The crime actually see in all colors streets of Coche, "" Beware of paramilitaries ", etc..
Death prefers poor
The case of Pastor is tragically commonplace, tragically common. The Salvadoran civil war, which lasted 12 years (in a country of just under six million inhabitants) has 75 000 victims. The "Bolivarian Revolution", which claims to be on the path of socialism, left to die more than 100,000 people in ten years, in peacetime, unflinchingly . Violence is not the same, obviously. That El Salvador was political, that of Venezuela has no color, no name, anyone can qualify. Yet death is preferred the poor, workers as Pastor risk their lives every day to bring food for their families. "Young men, residents of socioeconomically depressed communities of large urban centers," as stated in Article 2009. The roots of violence are deep, obviously. But the answers are insufficient.
A 42-year Pastor leaves behind a wife and a baby as young as seven months. That will ensure a dignified life and a future now? The height of cowardice does not only apply to one who pulls the trigger, and this applies especially to a state unable to answer a crying need in the population. This also applies to a state unable to protect its citizens and, where appropriate, to find and punish the guilty. This also applies to a ruling class increasingly focused on partisan politics and less about the realities of the country.
The rich always like the new rich (this "bolibourgeoisie" bureaucratic caste, which is enriched through its power stations) have much less to worry about violence. As in most Latin American capitals, upscale neighborhood homes are surrounded by high walls and systems surveillance. The senior officials access to private clinics and their children studying in the best schools, private as well. In Venezuela, many of whom preach socialism on the day of oligarchs and live like the rest of the time. By chance, a few days ago during a conversation with an acquaintance, it commented to me that the children of senior officials "Bolivarian" studying at the French Lycée in Caracas. Like what these people do not believe for one second to contribute to policies to establish themselves.
Pastor I saw just three days before his death. He complained of seeing buses softball teams (3) escorted by National Guard, while the inhabitants of Caracas are subject to curfew delinquency and serious lack of police manpower on the streets. Ironically, it is itself the victim three days later.
"The crime she has the skin of the Bolivarian revolution?" Was the question posed by the article published in 2009 in the daily Le Courrier . Today to respond, as I had done so with Pastor, I'll just quote someone else encountered on the streets of Caracas. It is the seller's booth newspaper downstairs from me, which I do not know the names but that sums up the prevailing feeling in the neighborhoods, 'I am but Chavez there , really the Comandante and the government do nothing to improve the situation. "
Notes:
(1) "The crime will Does the skin of the 'Bolivarian Revolution'? " The Courier , May 26, 2009.
(2) "transeunte a taxista furioso mató of a tiro," Últimas Noticias , June 28, 2010.
(3) The e Venezuela is currently hosting the XII World Championship Women's Softball.
a university is a bit special, which studies the most often outside, sitting in a circle under the trees. Some students wear a simple loincloth, others come and go barefoot, all speak a language other than English.